Sunday, November 25, 2012

Can happiness surveys predict the desire to migrate?

The Gallup
organization has found in its surveys that about 15 per cent of the world’s
adults would like to move to another country permanently if they had the
chance. The rate varies substantially between different parts of the world,
with about 38 per cent of adults in Sub-Saharan African countries saying that
they would like to move permanently if they were able.

About 80 per cent of
those who wish to leave low-income countries would like to go to high-income
countries, with the United States the most popular destination in terms of
absolute numbers. The desire to move tends to be higher in countries with
medium to low human development, according to the UN’s Human Development Index.

Gallup has constructed a Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI) which relates the desire to move into and out of
particular countries to their population. The PNMI is the estimated number of
adults who would like to move permanently into a country if the opportunity
arose, subtracted from the estimated number who would like to move out of it,
as a percentage of the total adult population. There are a substantial
number of countries with a PNMI score above 100 per cent (which implies that
the population would more than double under free migration) and a substantial
number with a PNMI score below 50 per cent (which implies that the population
would fall below half current levels under free migration).

Can PNMI scores be viewed as indicators of
the perceived wellbeing in different societies? Unless we have reason to
believe otherwise, it would be reasonable to expect societies with high PNMI
scores to have potential to provide high levels of wellbeing and societies with
low PNMI scores to provide low levels of wellbeing.

On that basis, we might expect that happiness
levels (i.e. indicators of subjective wellbeing) in different countries would
predict PNMI scores. If indicators of subjective wellbeing are not good
predictors of PNMI scores, we would need to consider the possibility that PNMI
scores reflect factors other than wellbeing levels in different countries and/or
that wellbeing indicators are biased by cultural or other factors.

The subjective wellbeing indicators that
seem most relevant are the Gallup estimates of the percentage of people thriving and suffering in each country. Gallup classifies survey respondents as
thriving, struggling or suffering, depending on their evaluations of their
current and future lives using the Cantril ladder. The percentages thriving
could reasonably be viewed as a ‘pull factor’, encouraging immigration, while
the percentages suffering could be viewed as a push factor, encouraging
emigration.

I have been able to match the PNMI and life
evaluation data for 111 countries. There is some correspondence between
countries in which a relatively high proportion of the population is thriving
and high PNMI scores. The top 10 countries on both criteria include four
countries in common (Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Canada). Among the
countries not included in the top 10
in terms of percentage thriving is Singapore, ranked first in terms of PNMI
scores, but with only 34 per cent of the population classified as thriving. Of
the countries included in the top 10 in terms of percentage thriving, Brazil
had the lowest PNMI score (ranked 59th ) even though 58 per cent of
the population of that country was classified as thriving.

At the other end of the scale, there is no
correspondence among the 10 countries with highest levels of suffering and lowest
PNMI scores. The 10 countries with lowest PNMI scores are Haiti, Sierra Leone,
Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Liberia, El Salvador, Comoros, Senegal and Ghana
(all with scores below -40 per cent). Of the countries included in the top 10
in terms of percentage suffering, Bulgaria (with 45 per cent classified as
suffering) had the highest PNMI score (ranked 32nd i.e. well above Brazil).

For those who are technically minded, the
estimated coefficients of a regression analysis explaining PNMI in terms of
percentage thriving and percentage suffering had the expected signs, but only
the coefficient on the thriving variable was significantly different from zero
at the 95 per cent level.

This analysis suggests that happiness
levels in different countries are better at predicting the attractiveness of
different countries as destinations for migration than at predicting the desire
to emigrate. That is consistent with Gallup’s research findings suggesting that people who want to migrate
are disproportionately young and educated and more likely to have relatives or
friends who have lived in foreign countries.

However, the analysis
doesn’t do much to improve my confidence in subjective wellbeing indicators. If
59 per cent of people are thriving in Brazil, why isn’t it a desired
destination for migration? Again, if only 34 per cent of the population of
Singapore are thriving, why would so many people want to move there?

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